At home, I’m fine. At home, I am, if anything, a little severe about stuff — I don’t need it, I don’t want more of it, the drawers are full enough. But put me on the far side of an ocean, wandering a foreign flea market or a medieval souk or even the cluster of souvenir booths that surround every popular tourist site, and some ancient acquisitive circuit switches on. Suddenly, every shiny useless thing starts calling to me in the same low voice: That. Bring that home.I’m sure the Germans have one of those compound nouns to describe this behavior. Something like touristiktrinketschleiben, probably. But I cannot walk past a souvenir stand or pass a flea-market table without stopping — and not just stopping, but picking things up, turning them over, holding a tarnished Blue Mosque souvenir spoon to the light with the exact expression of a man who might actually buy a tarnished Blue Mosque souvenir spoon. Which is a fatal thing to do, because it wakes the guy up. He’s been dozing behind the table, thumbing his phone, and my performance of interest is so persuasive that he rouses himself, waves a hand at the whole sad pile, and says the words that have separated me from my money on four continents: Eeez guld.